Episode 4: Why The Right Shouldn't Turn on Flock with Rahul Sidhu

Our Take

In this episode, Will Chamberlain and guest Rahul Sidhu make the case that conservatives are wrong to turn on Flock Safety, leaning on a secondhand story about a San Francisco gang member who claims cameras and drones ended his drive-bys. It's a vivid anecdote, and we don't doubt crime-reduction stories exist. But one deterrence story isn't a policy framework, and it conveniently skips the parts of the Flock debate that actually worry people across the political spectrum: who gets access to this data, how long it's kept, whether it's shared with ICE or out-of-state agencies, and what happens when a system built to catch violent felons gets used to track someone's ex, a journalist, or a protester.

The right-left split on Flock isn't really about whether cameras can ever help solve a crime — it's about whether a privately-run, loosely-regulated network of license plate readers blanketing entire cities should exist without warrants, audits, or meaningful local control. Libertarian-leaning conservatives who've soured on Flock aren't being inconsistent; they're applying the same skepticism of unchecked government power that used to be a conservative reflex, just pointed at a surveillance vendor instead of a federal agency. Treating that skepticism as a partisan betrayal, rather than engaging with the data-sharing and mission-creep record, is the weaker argument here.

Credit to Chamberlain and Sidhu for putting the pro-Flock case on record where it can be scrutinized — that's worth watching and weighing for yourself. If you want to see how dense this network actually is in your own area, check our camera map, and if you'd rather do something about it than just debate it, our take-action page has concrete steps.